Sprouted Bread

We go through a lot of toast at Chez Tortorello.  It is a staple for Mike especially and it keeps him going as he keeps odd hours.  That means I have been seeking out the perfect bread,  a thing that still seems to elude me in my present world.

My goal is to find a bread making method that nourishes the body, without creating trauma, or triggering an immune response.  I know such methods exist.  Bread is not a villain.  It is not an enemy to the human system.  Many of us have just forgotten how to interact with it.  Our relationship with food has changed and broken down.  It is up to us to heal that.  We won't do it by avoiding food or fearing it.

Which brings me to an experiment that I'm conducting now--even as I type these words.

When researching sprouted grain bread recipes on line, I ran into a recipe on the Mother Earth News site for Essene Bread.  "Oh yeah," I said to myself.  "I remember that recipe from the Essene Gospels."

I found it on line in 1999 and because of the way it was written, I just couldn't wrap my head around how that could possibly work.

But here it was on MotherEarthNews.com and so I decided to try it.  I rummaged around in my cupboard and came up with a jar of Emmer Farro wheat I had bought from my local food co-op.  I was curious because it had been marketed as a variety dated back 20,000 years  (Wikipedia says "Grains of wild emmer discovered at Ohalo II had a radiocarbon dating of 17,000 BC.").

Here is the recipe as it appears in Part 2 of The Teachings Of The Essene Jesus.  "Let the angels of God prepare your bread. Moisten your wheat, that the angel of water may enter it. Then set it in the air, that the angel of air also may embrace it. And leave it from morning to evening beneath the sun, that the angel of sunshine may descend upon it. And the blessing of the three angels will soon make the germ of life to sprout in your wheat. Then crush your grain, and make thin wafers, as did your forefathers when they departed out of Egypt, the house of bondage. Put them back again beneath the sun from its appearing, and when it is risen to its highest in the heavens, turn them over on the other side that they be embraced there also by the angel of sunshine, and leave them there until the sun be set. For the angels of water, of air, and of sunshine fed and ripened the wheat in the field, and they, likewise, must prepare also your bread. And the same sun which, with the fire of life, made the wheat to grow and ripen, must cook your bread with the same fire. For the fire of the sun gives life to the wheat, to the bread, and to the body."

I'm using an oven instead of baking it in the sun because the sky is hazy today and the Sun is shining weakly through all that.

Mother Earth News recommended 250 °F for Two and a half hours.  It is a very small loaf which smells incredible.  And it did even before I started baking it.

I put the sprouted grain through my food grinder, and it really did grind into a dough consistency.  You just have to try it to know what I mean.  Then I formed it into a loaf, put it in the oven with a dish of water to help keep it moist, and baked for two hours.  I realized my oven is a little hotter, so I turned it off and am letting it sit in the oven for the last half hour.

It doesn't rise, but it is fermented and that's what I was going for.  To make it more digestible, and so the body can use more of the nutrients in the grain.

Here are some pictures...

Grinding the sprouted grain.

The cats think I'm making cat food, because I'm using the grinder.

Grains in the top getting pulverized. 

It looks a little like batter as it comes out of the grinder.

Very sticky batter consistency with a lot of fiber mixed in.

Wet hands before handling to shape the loaf.  This is really sticky.

Small loaf in a greased pie tin.  About the size of my open hand.

As you can see, it didn't get any bigger.  But very, very tasty.

OK, so maybe not the kind of bread you would make toast with, but this would be excellent with home made soup.

And now, I have a larger batch sprouting to try in a few days.  In water, in the open air, and in the sunshine.

Soaking grain (Angel of Water), outdoors (Angel of Air),
in the sunlight (Angel of Sunshine)

Just a final word about the sprouting process.  I followed the instructions from the Essene text for the sprouting, because it made sense.  I often sprout things indoors, in a jar.  This was a completely different experience.

The first day I soaked the grain outdoors in the sun.  At the end of the day, I brought it in, drained it, rinsed it, drained it again and put a cloth over the top to discourage fruit flies.  The next two days I rinsed and drained it two or three times each day because I left it outdoors in the sun during the day covered with a cloth, and didn't want it to dry out.

It got really bubbly every time I would rinse it.  So there was a nice natural fermentation going on which made the grains/dough/bread really fragrant all the way through the process.

There are all sorts of versions on line, if you want to try making sprouted bread.  They vary in method.  Some are modernized, and resemble regular bread making techniques.  Some are primitive and technically raw food.

I'm still experimenting, so I'm not sure if I'll continue with this method, but it is a fun way to interact with the food making process, and the bread was a success.  I may never use flour to make bread again.